are rights absolute?

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Labgrade, et al,

I'm glad to see this thread is still alive. Labgrade, yes, it has taxed my reasoning also. I slipped in the property rights thing because I wanted to probe the idea that they might be what you were aiming at.

I think we might have done better if we had defined the extent of what is meant by absolute. In the sense of a king, absolute is whatever he may want or have whatever he wants according to his will. His will trumps all other considerations. That's a little too absolute for me. Perhaps the founders were on to something when they characterized rights as inalienable. We can't be separated from them. In that sense, rights are absolutely ours, that is, we cannot be separated or estranged from them by the acts of governments or other persons. In this sense rights are a matter of absolute property. With this I must agree. In the sense of the king, rights cannot be absolute as to exercise because there are natural limits imposed by the rights of other persons. This is the operation of the NAP.

Beer, I'm simply stumped as to your nick. I have cartoonish visions of a horse at bar with you raising a glass, dancing, carousing and in general trying to defy nature by becoming an ***. Then sort of doing a horsey-stagger on the way home.

Ahenry,
If I choose to not jump up and down, do I still have the right to jump up and down? If I choose to enter into an agrement with which limits the practice or exercise of a particular right, do I still have that right?
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Yes. You have the right to jump up and down. You do not have the right to do so on my property unless I grant permission. You still retain the right, you simply can't exercise it on my property.

Yes. If you choose to enter an agreement to voluntarily refrain from exercising your rights, you still retain the rights, you simply cannot exercise them according to the terms of the agreement.

Chipper
 
Yes. You have the right to jump up and down. You do not have the right to do so on my property unless I grant permission. You still retain the right, you simply can't exercise it on my property.
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I beg to differ. I have the right jump all I want on your property. I also “have the right†to deal with the consequences. According to you, if I do not have the right to jump up and down on your property, where do you derive the right to keep me from doing so? Suppose I change the example to an action that harmed you (even though you had not violated the “non aggression principleâ€), but saved my life. Do I not have the right to protect my life? Whose right then is supreme? I submit that what makes us human (among other things) is that we have the right to choose our actions, whatever they may be. We can think and we can define consequences for our actions. From that we can make a decision to do or to not do a certain thing. At the bottom line however, we have the right to act as we desire, and we have the responsibility of living with the consequences.*


Yes. If you choose to enter an agreement to voluntarily refrain from exercising your rights, you still retain the rights, you simply cannot exercise them according to the terms of the agreement.
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I agree. If an elected gov’t (that I choose to submit to) places restrictions upon a right I possess, do I still retain that right? By extension, can an elected gov’t (that I choose to submit to) ever take away a right?

* As society has lessened the responsibility an individual has for what they do, freedom and liberty have suffered. A free society cannot exist without the ability to act as one chooses (with perhaps agreed upon restrictions) and the responsibility to suffer the consequences.
 
Beer, I'm simply stumped as to your nick. I have cartoonish visions of a horse at bar with you raising a glass, dancing, carousing and in general trying to defy nature by becoming an ***. Then sort of doing a horsey-stagger on the way home.
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I assumed it was for a fantastic C&W song by Toby Keith and Willie Nelson. The lyrics are great, and sorta go along with this thread (at least the points I’m making).
 
This thread has now become a debate over the meaning of the word "right." A "right" (for purposes of this discussion) is not simply the mere ability to do something as several have recently posted. A "right" is a protected or guaranteed ability to do something. At least that's what a fundamental, inalienable right is. That's where this thread started out.

Thus, I have the ability to jump up and down on your property all I want, but I don't have the "right" to do so.
 
Ahenry,

I beg to differ. I have the right jump all I want on your property. I also “have the right†to deal with the consequences. According to you, if I do not have the right to jump up and down on your property, where do you derive the right to keep me from doing so?
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Excuse me for for my most wicked act of assuming. Assuming that most people prefer to avoid consequences. Perhaps this aversion to consequences is partly a basis for society also. If you wish to go this route then I will flatly proclaim you have NO right to jump up and down on my property and promptly relieve you of the burden of ever exercising your rights. Why? Because you have aggressed against me, my rights and my property. By exercising your right you have transgressed a natural, though in this case a highly suspect, limit on the exercise of that right by doing so on my property.

Suppose I change the example to an action that harmed you (even though you had not violated the “non aggression principleâ€), but saved my life. Do I not have the right to protect my life? Whose right then is supreme? I submit that what makes us human (among other things) is that we have the right to choose our actions, whatever they may be. We can think and we can define consequences for our actions. From that we can make a decision to do or to not do a certain thing. At the bottom line however, we have the right to act as we desire, and we have the responsibility of living with the consequences.*
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Or not living with the consequences as the case may be.

Then, according to you, if there exist no natural limits then what is the point of even having rights? We are then reduced to nothing more than animals in a jungle or wild beasts of the field. We simply accept the consequences of whatever it is that we do and that is the end of that. Then Hobbes was right and life is nothing more than a war of all against all. There is then no need of law for there is no standard and therefore no need of justifying actions. In short, all of society is a sham because our individual rights trump all. As a matter of fact, rights do not even exist. I simply cannot accept that. It is illogical. It denies the nature of man and makes little more than highly evolved apes.

* As society has lessened the responsibility an individual has for what they do, freedom and liberty have suffered. A free society cannot exist without the ability to act as one chooses (with perhaps agreed upon restrictions) and the responsibility to suffer the consequences
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Your footnote does not bolster your argument. You can't have it both ways. You either have rights and their natural limits or you don't. The rights and the natural limits to the exercise of rights are antecedent to any agreed upon restrictions. Agreed upon restrictions are the artificial limits agreed to by those who enter into a contractual relationship. The agreement in effect provides a de factodefinition of your rights simply by agreeing to the stated limits on your actions. According to your arguments, you are still left without rights outside the limits of the agreement. So what's it going to be? We have rights and their natural limits or we don't.

And as far as the choice of music, if I listen to C & W, it is the old school stuff, Merle Haggard, Ferlin Husky, Porter Waggoner, Lynn Anderson and so on. I really don't care for this newer "wish it could be pop rock" stuff.

Chipper
 
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Could we agree that I never had a right to murder someone?
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Yes, we can agree. But you also have a right to life, UNLESS you murder someone. That, on its face is an exception to the right to life, meaning that the right to life cannot be absolute. An "absolute" right by definition cannot be subject to conditions, exceptions, or restrictions; it must be unconditional. I don't see why that's so hard for some people to understand.
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Beer,

But Sir. My right to life is with that assumption that I would never deprive another (of course). Each comes with it's own responsibility.

A willy-nilly "exercize" of my rights (in your instance) would indeed deprive me of my heretofores because I never did have that "right" to begin with.

Very simplistic, very easy on the brain.

I have basic rights that are[/I] absolute, but with that comes an undertsanding also that I cannot infringe upon anothers'.

Interesting tidbit that I missed today that The Wife passed on - a midrash on a Torah portion that stated that we have no rights - only obligations ..... I missed a good one.
 
No rights thread is complete without seeing what the scripture says about the issue.

1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?

Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Psalms 119:45 And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts.

Jeremiah 34:16 But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.


1 Peter 2:16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

So its not as if its a free for all when you mentally dispose of mans law, we're still accountable to God and his law.
 
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